Sunday, November 3, 2013

More Operation Squad


A few days ago Nick, Mike, Franz and I played another game of Operation Squad which is a WWII based skirmish game at the squad level. The terrain is a mix of mine and Nick's and the lovely figures used for this game were Nick's who has been working really hard on his 28mm WWII collection and we felt he should be rewarded by using all his figures(it didn't hurt that they looked superb either!).

Nick and I took the role of a German Luftwaffe squad supported by a Puma, Pak 40, mortar and a Tiger I vs Mike and Franz running a Soviet rifle squad led by a commissar supported by a sniper, mortar, T34/85 and an ISU2. We decided to go way overboard on the support points to try out the heavies, plus I really wanted to play the Tiger!:-)

Things started well for the Russians destroying the Puma with the ISU2 and wiping out a couple Volksgrenadier support sections with the rock hard sniper in both shooting and close combat! However, things changed when the Tiger got his groove on and blew up both the T34 and ISU2 in a gunslinger type showdown. I could almost hear Clint Eastwood or should I say Hans Ostwald saying "Go ahead make my day!".:-)  Then the German mortar found his mark and wiped out a quarter of the Soviets and the commissar in one fell shot. On top of this the supporting members of the German mortar section gunned down the their opposite Russian mortar section through small arms fire and being caught in the blast from the exploding T34.  At this point the Russians were 1 man away from having to take a route test and had no real answer to the Tiger so we ended the game there.

As usual Operation Squad provided an excellent movie like experience and was great fun, but it has it's problems with the sniper, mortar and grenades being way to effective and the lack of tanks have differing levels of front, sides and rear armour values plus the high powered main guns pretty much slice through everything. We will add a few a house rules and that should alleviate these issues.

My camara didn't take very many good pictures this time so I only have a few decent ones, but I implore you to check out Nick's blog that gives a fuller account of the game here.

Thanks for viewing!


37 comments :

  1. The terrain is really amazing, beautiful pictures!

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  2. That is rather a beautiful looking table.

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  3. Thank you for the kind words about my figures. The game was great fun and I always enjoy your beautifully set up and well thought through terrain.

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    1. Thank you for the comment, but even more so for bringing all those great figures!

      Christopher

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  4. Very nice. lots of neat areas of terrain difficulty to negotiate in battle. The table looks like a lot of fun.

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  5. Great looking table and terrain Christopher!

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  6. Thanks for the batrep. I really love your table. I am getting ready to set up my first table. What are you using for the base mat? Felt or a gaming mat? Also, what are you using for roads? Are they custom?

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    1. Thank you very much Mike. It's a felt cloth with natural foliage scattered on it. The roads are JR miniatures latex rubber roads that I repainted. I'm not sure if they are still in business, but you can look around.

      Christopher

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  7. Great looking game! I really like your roads!

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  8. Stunning looking game Christopher!

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  9. The terrain looks very realistic and it sounded like a great game, especially when you can have a tiger.
    Cheers,
    Pat.

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    1. Thank you very much Pat and indeed a Tiger sure does improve on a game!

      Christopher

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  10. Greate looking game, realy like your terrain !

    Best regards Michael

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  11. Beautiful terrain and great AAR!

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  12. Excellent AAR Christopher! I agree, I love many aspects of Operation Squad but some of the values don't quite jive. I'd be curious to see what you come up with for house rules. Again, lovely game.

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    1. Thank you very much Curt! For the mortar we will upgrade the casualty effect (ie 1-12 no effect 13- 15 pinned,16-17 wounded and 18+ KIA. We may do grenades similar, but back 1 as they are not as effective as mortars(1-11,12-14,15-16,17+. When snipers fire and stay in the same position then they lose the additional hide dice(ie go from 3 to 2). We are still chewing over armour frontages.

      Christopher

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